


i touch you, but it starts to hurt

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Psychic Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-17 12:30:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3529505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles tornados into Derek’s loft the same way he always does, asking questions and snarking at Isaac before he’s even fully through the door and Derek rolls his eyes and tamps down on the feeling that Stiles’ arrival tries to stir up in him. The thing he always feels when faced with Stiles, something an awful lot like fondness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i touch you, but it starts to hurt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chiomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Take Your Pain Away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/930894) by [Chiomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/pseuds/Chiomi). 



> remix of take your pain away by Chiomi and since my method of remixing was to switch the point of view from stiles' to derek's about 99% of the dialogue and all of the plot comes from that. so if you enjoy this you should def give that a read too. it's excellent :) 
> 
> title is from "real" by years and years.
> 
> note: stiles is physically violent with derek at one point, and derek tries to intimidate stiles at another point, but they arent in a romantic relationship when either of those things happen.

Stiles tornados into Derek’s loft the same way he always does, asking questions and snarking at Isaac before he’s even fully through the door and Derek rolls his eyes and tamps down on the feeling that Stiles’ arrival tries to stir up in him. The thing he always feels when faced with Stiles, something an awful lot like fondness. 

Stiles is talking about something, about people dying of sleep apnea and how he doesn’t believe that’s the real cause, and Derek can tell he’s not telling the whole truth. He doesn’t think the other wolves will be able to catch the subtle lie, except probably Scott who knows Stiles better than anyone, and Derek decides not to confront him about it unless something happens that makes him think it’s going to be a problem. He just digs out his MacBook and passes it to Stiles. 

Stiles immediately starts googling something, still speaking while he opens up tabs and Derek hovers behind him, trying to figure out what’s going on. “Do you know how few people die of sleep apnea?” he asks. “It’s like 6% of patients over five years. That’s low, that’s ridiculously low. But we’ve had three people apparently die of it in the last month, and only one of them was even diagnosed with sleep apnea.”

He’s radiating jittery nervousness, his shoulders tensed and his leg jiggling, and Derek can tell that he’s feeling pretty awful. He feels like he needs to do something to help, so he sticks out his hand, brushes his fingers over Stiles’ neck, letting them linger there, and says, “Calm down.” He’s not sure Stiles is in any actual pain, but he starts trying to leach it away just in case, and is only mildly surprised when the phantom pain of a headache blossoms behind his eyes. “How does that make it our problem?” he asks, mostly to distract himself from the warmth of Stiles’ skin and the way he’s relaxing into Derek’s touch. 

Stiles doesn’t answer for a second, just keeps looking through the websites he’s on, but then he stops, pointing at a picture, and saying, “Because mysterious sleeping deaths can be caused by this thing, called an Alp in Germany and a Bahktak in Iran, and normal people can’t even see them, let alone fight them.”

Derek lets his fingers drop from Stiles' neck and moves away before anyone can notice he's been lingering too long. "How do we kill it?” he asks. 

“Looks like rending and tearing’ll work fine, it’s mostly a matter of locating it and making it visible. But I don’t know how it’s choosing its victims - Connie the dispatcher’s daughter doesn’t have a lot in common with this guy Jefferson in the retirement home, so I don’t know how to lure it out.” He looks up then, first at Scott and then over to Derek. “So what do we do?”

Derek thinks for a moment and then he says, "Find the address. We'll go by and try to catch a scent." 

"But - fine, yeah, okay. I'll do that now."

Derek watches as Stiles opens up a few websites, typing rapidly. Then Stiles says, “Okay, so there are three. I should probably go with whoever’s going to Connie’s house, because she knows me and will actually let us in. Here’s the retirement home, and Scott or Isaac, you should go, because you’re adorable. The other house, she has a boyfriend who lives there, so you might have to talk past him or break and enter." 

Derek sees Cora hop down from the counter out of the corner of his eye, and she says, “I should go to that one, then. Peter, come with me.”

Then Isaac looks first at Scott, then at Derek. “I’ll go with Scott. Probably better to look more harmless.”

So Derek resigns himself to going with Stiles. Which isn’t exactly a hardship it’s just the more time he spends with Stiles, the more he realizes just how much he cares about him. And even worse the more he risks Stiles finding out just how much he cares about him. 

***

In the car he’s trying hard to distract himself by thinking about other things, which is why he’s so thrown off when Stiles pulls the Jeep over and hisses at him to get out of the car. He turns to Stiles, raising an eyebrow and waiting for some kind of explanation, and then Stiles winces sharply like he just got hit over the head with a baseball bat and his expression goes blank, like he’s looking right through Derek. 

Derek instinctively reaches out and grabs onto Stiles’ forearm, pulling pain out. He almost lets go, because it’s way more pain than he had been expecting, but he manages to recover himself and keep his grip at the same time he realizes what’s going on. Stiles is having a vision. The dumbass went and did something stupid to give himself visions. Derek’s going to kill him. 

Stiles comes back to himself suddenly, and yanks his arm away from Derek. “What are you doing?” he asks, sounding panicky and caught. 

“You were in pain. You have visions now.” 

Stiles doesn’t speak at first, just starts the Jeep back up and pulls back on the road, but then he says, “They’re useful.” 

Derek wants to scream. Stiles causing himself massive amounts of pain and becoming a target to supernatural creatures that are going to see a psychic as a threat is not, “useful.” But instead of screaming he just says, “They’re new.” 

Stiles opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but then he doesn’t, just closes it back and keeps driving. 

It’s several minutes before he speaks again. “Things are going to be coming, because of the nemeton. We needed an edge, so I went and got one. It’s just been . . . tricky.”

“What did you see?”

For a second he thinks Stiles isn’t going to answer. He’s just staring blankly ahead, but then he says, “Scott as the next target.”

Derek’s surprised by that. “It can actually go after an alpha?”

“It killed him,” Stiles says quietly, and then he speeds through a red light. Derek doesn’t mention it. Stiles just watched something kill his best friend, Derek isn’t going to berate him for missing a light. 

They stop at the grocery store and Derek waits in the Jeep while Stiles goes in. He comes back with a box of cookies and they head on.

When they make it to their destination, and pile out of the car and up to the door, Stiles knocks, and a woman who looks like she hasn’t slept or showered in days answers the door. “Stiles.”

Stiles holds out the cookies he brought and Derek tries to look friendly. “I brought cookies. I thought I could help you organize all the casseroles. I’m familiar with the casserole problem.”

She smiles at Stiles like she’s just now remembering what happened with Stiles’ mom and realizing he’s someone who will actually understand what she’s feeling. She pushes the door open wider. “Come in,” she says, and then after a glance at Derek adds, “And you are?”

Derek follows Stiles in. The smell of grief is overpowering in the house and it reminds Derek of the way the hotel rooms he and Laura stayed at right after the fire always smelled, thick with the scent of their grief and despair. “Derek Hale, ma’am. I gave Stiles a ride. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Connie leads them through the front of the house into the kitchen, and Stiles starts unpacking all the casseroles in the fridge so he can rearrange them. Derek says, “Is it alright if I use your bathroom, ma’am?” and Connie nods and waves him back in the direction they came from. 

Derek nods and says, “Thank you,” before ducking out of the kitchen. He heads back through the front rooms and down a hallway. He sees the bathroom but walks past it heading for the bedrooms instead. The first one is messy, and smells the strongest of grief so Derek assumes that’s Connie’s room and moves on to the next one. He’s hit with an unfamiliar scent as soon as he crosses the threshold and it’s not strong, but it’s enough for him to get a hold on it. He lets it wash over him for a little while, memorizing it, and then he heads back for the kitchen. 

When he gets back he catches Stiles’ eye and nods to let him know they got what they came for. Connie has made tea and it would be rude to leave before drinking it so Stiles and Derek sit down around the table and drink their tea as quickly as they can without being obvious. Derek’s not good with talking to people he doesn't know, isn't even particularly good at talking to people he does know so he lets Stiles handle most of the conversation. 

He talks a lot about the SATs and Derek is reminded once again just how young Stiles is. He should be worrying about getting in to college, not giving himself psychic visions about whatever terror is running through their town this week. And Derek hates himself for it. If he hadn’t trusted Kate none of this would be happening. He wouldn’t have lost almost his entire family in a fire. Peter wouldn’t have murdered Laura in a misguided attempt to be able to exact revenge and Scott never would have been bitten, which means Stiles wouldn’t have been thrown into the world of the supernatural either. 

They excuse themselves as soon as they can, and the moment they’re through the door Stiles snaps out, “What did you smell?”

“I’ll be able to track it,” Derek tells him.

“Good. Back to the loft, then, until everyone else reports in?”

“Yes. And you can explain what you did so we can figure out how to undo it.”

Stiles pauses and then storms away without answering, like a fucking child, and then he slams the door of the Jeep, like a fucking child. 

“What do you mean, undo it?” he asks, as soon as Derek has shut himself in the passenger seat. 

“It hurts you,” Derek says. He doesn’t know why Stiles won’t just accept that as an argument. It’s a pretty damn good one. 

But of course he won’t so he flails his arms out angrily and says, “And? You guys get eviscerated pretty often to try to keep everyone safe. A headache, particularly for an actually useful thing that means that you guys might not get eviscerated as much? Totally worth it.”

Derek pauses and Stiles takes the opportunity to turn the Jeep on, effectively cutting off Derek’s ability to argue. The Jeep is loud, and Derek knows that Stiles can still hear him over the engine, but Stiles always pretends he can’t and there’s no use arguing it. So he waits Stiles out and as soon as they get back to Derek’s building and the Jeep stops, he says, “It’s not useful.”

“Screw you, too,” Stiles says. “That was just my fourth vision, and the timeline is getting better.”

“But-” Derek starts, fully prepared to continue to argue this, but Stiles cuts him off and storms out of the Jeep. 

“No.” 

Derek rolls his eyes, and follows Stiles out. He catches up to him easily and unlocks the door of his building before continuing his argument. “You’re putting yourself in pain unnecessarily. We don’t need it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, has the death rate in Beacon Hills suddenly dropped to reasonable levels? I was unaware, because I’ve been distracted by the jerk stealing people’s breath.”

Derek’s pissed now. Pissed that Stiles keeps throwing himself into danger. Pissed that he didn’t at least talk to someone experienced in the supernatural before doing this. Pissed that he doesn’t care that it’s hurting him. And pissed that Stiles won’t fucking listen to him, so he crowds him against the elevator door, and of course Stiles just lets him.

Stiles stares him down, his heartbeat totally steady and not even a little scent of fear coming off him, just waves and waves of frustration and anger. Derek just keeps looming though, hoping against hope that he’ll be able to wear him down through sheer force of will until the elevator dings behind them and Stiles steps into the open space and presses the button for Derek’s floor. 

***

“What’d you guys find?” Scott asks as soon as they’re through the door.

Stiles answers for them. “Derek found a scent, and we’re pretty sure it can target supernatural creatures, so you should track it ASAP.”

“Stiles gets visions.” Derek announces, hoping maybe Scott’ll be able to talk some sense into his best friend.

He barely even has time to see it coming when Stiles just spins on the spot and punches him in the face. Hard. It still barely even registers to Derek though, and he knows Stiles probably hurt himself more than he hurt him so he just cocks his eyebrow at him, thoroughly unimpressed with the whole display. Stiles literally snarls at him, but Derek can tell he’s in pain from the hard set of his jaw. 

Stiles turns back around, and Derek puts his hand on his shoulder, steering him toward a chair as an excuse to leach out some of the pain in Stiles’ hand. 

Stiles breathes out harshly as he sits down and says, “Scott, it’s gonna target you next.”

Scott doesn’t look as concerned by the revelation as he probably should and he says, “Okay? It’s not like that’ll be a problem. As soon as I know it’s there, I just rip it in half, problem solved.”

“Yeah, just one problem, Scotty - you won’t see it until you’re almost dead. It’s not exactly walking in wearing a sign around its neck. It’s probably better if you don’t sleep alone.”

Cora and Peter get back then. Derek turns their way, crossing his arms over his chest and says, “Find anything?”

Cora just frowns, which Derek is pretty sure means she’s frustrated so the next words out of her mouth probably aren’t going to be helpful. “The scent was almost faded - actually I’m not sure if it was whatever we’re looking for or just a different person who visited. Any luck for you guys?”

“We didn’t find anything,” Isaac says, “but that’s okay, since Derek did, and Scott’s gonna be the next target.”

Cora raises an eyebrow at the cryptic comment. “And how do we know that?”

“Not important!” Stiles says.

“Dumbass here got visions,” Derek says, and he’s relieved when Peter and Cora actually pay attention. Finally other people who understand that this is serious. He wishes that Peter wasn’t on his side because that kind of hurts his credibility a bit really, but still.

Stiles shrinks in his chair and Derek hopes he’s finally realizing the gravity of the situation. “It’s fine. Look, can we focus on the thing where something wants to kill Scott, please?”

Peter smiles in that creepy way that always makes Derek want to punch him in the face and says, “Of course, Seer. The easiest solution is just to make sure Scott doesn’t sleep alone, isn’t it?”

Stiles grimaces at Peter and then turns his attention to Scott. “So, Scott, pizza and video games? We can pretend it’s middle school and not murder watch.”

“Do it here,” Derek says.

“Natch; doesn’t match the vision.”

“Uh, since I died, isn’t it better if it doesn’t match?”

“If too much changes, the thing might not show up at all, and then someone else might die.”

“We could join you,” Peter says. 

Derek cringes before glaring at him. Then he turns to Scott. “I should probably be there, since I got the scent, but if you don’t want to stay here -”

“You, Stiles, and Isaac can come over, I guess. We’ll play Mario Party.”

Stiles groans and at first Derek thinks it’s because he doesn’t want him there, but then he says, “Scott, the idea is that people don’t get violently murdered,” and Derek realizes it’s just Stiles being theatrical. 

When they get to Scott’s house Derek refuses to play Mario Party. He knows the thing isn’t supposed to come till later, not till Scott is asleep but he wants to be on alert anyway. He’s not the alpha anymore, and he likes it better that way really. He was never supposed to be the alpha and was never very good at it. But he still feels a protectiveness over his pack mates. Especially Stiles, for reasons he refuses to let himself think about. 

Everyone makes it through the night without killing each other though, and when it hits midnight, Derek decides enough’s enough. He starts glaring at them all pointedly and eventually Stiles sighs before shutting off the game. “We should sleep. This thing doesn’t attack when people are awake, so if we’re going to catch it, we should go to bed.”

Scott looks brave, but smells like nerves and Derek feels for him. Scott’s an alpha and a damn good one, but he’s also still a kid. He shouldn’t have to be doing this. Just like Laura shouldn’t have had to be an alpha so young even though she was a great one too. 

Stiles shoves at Scott and says, “Go brush your teeth,” his light tone sounding a little forced. Derek knows he’s not as confident in their plan as he’s trying to seem. 

Scott, Stiles and Isaac end up piling on the bed and Derek takes the chair in the corner. He wants to be closer to both the window and the door so that maybe the thing won’t even make it to Scott before Derek takes it out. 

It takes a while for him to drift off, because he’s tense with nerves and anticipation but he forces himself to breathe deeply and relax until he drifts off. He wakes suddenly a couple of hours later, to Stiles’ scream of, “Shit! Guys, guys, it’s here!”

Derek’s standing in a second, shifting as he gets to his feet and looking around the room frantically. “The alp?”

“Fuckdamnit!” Stiles says, and Derek tries hard to see what it is he’s supposed to be attacking. Isaac’s up now too, getting to his feet and shifting as well. 

The thing flickers into visibility suddenly, and cackles in Stiles’ face in a way that sends a shiver down Derek’s spine. “Seer,” it says. 

Then it reaches out and scratches at Stiles’ face before any of them have time to react. Stiles makes a surprised noise, and stumbles backwards. Derek itches to check on him, but knows he’ll be fine and that the main concern now is to get rid of this thing. So, he doesn’t take his eyes off of it. And when it moves suddenly and leaps through Scott’s bedroom window, Derek hesitates for just long enough for Stiles to say, “Go! You’ll be able to see it,” and then he leaps through the window after it, Isaac close behind him. 

They catch up with the Alp pretty quickly, but it fights back harder than they were expecting. Derek and Isaac get in a few good swipes but so does the Alp, and by the time they finally rip it in two and it vanishes Derek is pretty torn up. He’s bleeding pretty viciously from a deep wound in his stomach and he’s got long scratch marks up and down his arms. There’s another wound on his neck that’s bleeding a little too much and it worries Derek slightly, but it should heal fine. He needs to go to the loft though. 

Isaac faired quiet a bit better and most of his wounds are already closing up so Derek says, “You okay going back there and checking in and telling them we’re good? I think I need to head to the loft.” 

Isaac nods. “Yeah, that’s fine,” and Derek takes off. 

***

When he makes it back to the loft he’s relieved that Peter and Cora don’t seem to be home because he really doesn’t feel like talking to anyone right now. He strips out of his clothes, and climbs into the shower, washing all the blood off and watching all his wounds slowly stitch themselves up. 

Once the water is running clear, and starting to turn a little cold he climbs back out and digs around in his dresser for clean clothes. He doesn’t even bother with a shirt, but he pulls on a pair of loose fitting sweatpants and heads for the living room, collapsing down on the couch in exhaustion.

Derek hears Stiles’ Jeep approaching from miles away, and when he hears him parking, he goes to meet him at the door to the loft. Stiles is pissed when he gets off the elevator, the scent of anger hitting Derek hard from across the hallway. He storms up to Derek, getting right in his face and he says in a deadly sounding voice, “I should punch you in your stupid masochistic face, but I won’t give you the satisfaction.”

Derek sees the cut on Stiles’ face from the Alp, and a new one on his arm that he’s assuming was an accident from Scott, and with the masochism comment he puts it together. Stiles has finally somehow been clued into the fact that Derek taking his pain causes Derek pain. He really doesn’t want to argue about this so he just says, “You’re hurt,” moving so Stiles can come in the loft.

“Fuck you,” is Stiles’ reply as he ambles over to the couch and sprawls out on it. He rests his injured arm on his chest, and props his head up on the arm of the couch. “Why would you do that when all it does is hurt you?”

Derek knows Stiles probably isn’t going to let him take his pain right now, so he forgoes answering his question immediately for getting Stiles some Tylenol. He heads into the kitchen, and digs around deep in his cabinet until he pulls out the pills he bought for the human pack members just in case they were ever needed. Then he gets Stiles a glass of water before heading back into the living room. He’s honestly kind of surprised by the radio silence from Stiles. He’d been expecting him to keep yelling. 

Derek sits the water and the Tylenol on the table in front of Stiles and then turns around, sitting down in the chair that Stiles usually claims. He aches to reach out for Stiles and just take his pain away. It’s so much more effective than Tylenol and at least then he gets to feel like he’s paying Stiles back for all the danger he’s always throwing himself into. He resists the urge though, knowing it’ll just piss Stiles off more, and goes for broke, admitting the truth. “It’s the only thing I can do for you.”

Stiles turns his head toward Derek, wincing as he does it and Derek has to clench his hands into fists to resist the urge to grab Stiles arm and just suck the pain out. “Are you actually delusional? Have you missed the thing where our life-saving ledger is totally even, and all of us do everything we can to make sure we get out in one piece? You hurting yourself so I don’t have to spend money on over-the-counter pain meds doesn’t help us survive better.”

Derek just glares at him, knowing that Stiles is going to realize why Derek cares so much any second now and says, “Take your stupid pills.”

Stiles sits up and grabs the pills, taking them dry and ignoring the water, and Derek barely resists the urge to roll his eyes. Stiles sits there for a moment, just staring at Derek, his eyes roving over him like he’s looking for something, and then he says, “You meant for me in particular, not the plural ‘you.’”

“It’s not like I don’t deserve -” Derek starts, wanting to explain that it makes him feel better to be able to do it. Like he’s making up for all the pain he’s caused other people, but Stiles cuts him off. 

“Nope! Nope, we are backing up from the endless pit of trauma and talking more about how you wanted to do something nice for me in particular.”

And there it is. Derek knew Stiles would get there eventually, but he was hoping he could make it to Stiles’ eighteenth birthday before he realized that Derek has stupid feelings for him. It’s not like Derek doesn’t know that Stiles at least thinks he’s attractive. He can smell the arousal wafting off him even now, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Stiles likes him like that. But with the way Stiles is looking at him now, Derek’s pretty sure he does. “I didn’t want to talk about this until next October,” he says. 

He doesn’t want to be Kate, and he knows he wouldn’t be. He would never take advantage of the fact that he’s older than Stiles and pressure or manipulate him into anything, but he doesn’t want to even put himself in the position to be able to take advantage of it. So they’re not doing this yet. Waiting until Stiles is eighteen will give Stiles time to think about it and make sure this is what he really wants. 

Derek can hear Stiles’ heart thundering in his chest, and the smell of anger has drifted more towards something like contentment and Derek knows they’re going to be okay. 

“Okay,” Stiles says. “We can - I can - October is fine.” A sudden hint of nervousness wafts off Stiles and he fidgets as he says, “But then can we talk about, uh, about the part where you liked it? Not just - not the helping part, and not the fucked up penance part.” He seems to grow more confident as he speaks and Derek thinks he’s okay with where this is going. “After my birthday, can we talk about how you liked that it hurt?”

And Derek’s definitely okay with that. Especially the part where Stiles likes him back, so he says, “Yeah,” and then that’s that. At least until October.


End file.
